Page 38 of The Daddy P.I. Casefiles: The Second Collection

“Yeah, or other signs of discontent. Is your little doing what they want to be doing with their life? Are they happy day to day, hour to hour? Not everyone’s happy all the time, of course, but the littles I’ve met want to be.”

“I mean.” I shrug. “Wouldn’t be the worst thing.”

Logan chuckles. “You mind if we move to barbells? This is making my gourd pound.”

“Of course, man. I don’t want you doing anything that makes you worse.”

“Thanks. I think it’s just the pressure. I feel a lot better than I did yesterday but lying back like this and lifting over my head’s not doing me any good.”

“Any news on that front?” I ask as we move over to his barbell set and select our weights.

While we do curls, Logan updates me on the situation with Rick-the-Dick and I make some mental notes. Rick can threaten whatever he likes, and it sounds like he’s made the same threats to Logan that he made to Manny, but I’m going to make damn sure he can’t carry through with them.

“Don’t stress about this shit,” I say to Logan. “Rick’s about to have so many legal problems of his own that he’s not going to have any mental space left to focus on you.”

Logan sets the weights between his feet. “What do you mean?”

“He says he’s going to point people at you because you didn’t catch Gloria Wilson fast enough? They’re going to go after him first. She was his fucking business manager. She was trying to poison him, not you. He’s the one who insisted on having a party when he knew someone was stalking him.”

Logan rubs the back of his neck. “Yeah, but we were hired to take care of his security. I’m just worried about the publicity.”

“There won’t be any,” I promise him as I lie down on the mat to do crunches. “There won’t be any mention of this in the media at all.”

“Fuck, Max, you can do that?”

I can do a lot of things Logan doesn’t need to know about. “Yeah, I’ll keep on top of it. I got that we’re not working for Rick anymore, but howmuchare we not working for him?”

Logan’s expression ices. “Not at all.”

“Do you want him to ever work again?”

“I don’t want to ruin his career,” Logan says.

“Okay.”

“Max, if I’d said yes, could you?”

“I could suppress mentions of him in the media. His movies would tank. It wouldn’t be long before no one would cast him.”

Logan runs his hands through his hair. “I—no, I don’t want to do that to him. I’m angry and he took a couple of cheap shots at me, but I don’t want to fuck him over like that. He might not be able to act again anyway if what he was saying about his heart comes to pass. I don’t want to add to his load.”

I’m not going to argue, but I might decide to fuck Rick over anyway. He should, at the very least, have his accounts frozen while he’s the subject of a money-laundering investigation. That’ll teach him to punch people with head injuries.

We move through the rest of the workout with only casual conversation until we’re finished, and Logan tosses me a towel.

“Manny mentioned you were reconsidering coming in with us?”

“Not reconsidering. I want to join you. I wanted to when you asked last year. It just wasn’t safe. I was tangled up in jobs for some guys I didn’t want anywhere near you and Man. But I’m done with all that.”

Logan’s eyes narrow. “What guys?”

“Guys you don’t know and don’t want to know. Hackers. Blackhats.”

“And you’re done with them?”

“I am. I’ve taken steps to make sure my security is solid. They’re not going to get me online and Manny’s got me fucking chipped like a dog so I’m as safe as I can be physically.”

“Did they make any threats against you?”